Today plants and machinery must have a solid industrial network architecture in order to protect company data and guarantee IT security.
The flow of data and its transformation into useful information is a process that must be protected with solutions for secure and consolidated industrial networks.
A network infrastructure built on EtherNet and IP standards allows data to move safely throughout the company. To improve the protection of the industrial automation infrastructure, Rockwell Automation offers some interesting solutions such as the Stratix 5950 and Stratix 5700 industrial managed Ethernet switches.
Let’s see the difference between these two products!
Stratix 5950
It is a device that is based on the most common network security technologies. Its functions include access control, threat detection and application visibility in its industrial control system. One of its advanced security features concerns the ability to detect and prevent dangerous traffic between devices. Threat prevention is managed through configured security policies such as the ability to encrypt corporate data.
Stratix 5700 industrial managed Ethernet switches
Using the current switch architecture, these ethernet switches offer switching functionality, from smaller applications to IT-ready integration with the entire plant infrastructure. The integrated switching technology combines the various Ethernet switch functions within the hardware, allowing you to connect the devices directly to the network.
Thanks to the Stratix 5700, you have simple diagnostic and configuration functions. The network architecture is optimized thanks to the integrated device-level ring network connectivity. It also provides integrated network address translation functionality (NAT), that offers an analysis of IP addresses, both at machine level and wider plant network. As in the Stratix 5950 device, access control is included in the security functions. We also highlight the PoE (Power over Ethernet) versions. It is able to power on the same cable as the Ethernet connection, in order to reduce wiring.
Stratix 5700 industrial managed Ethernet switches can be easily integrated with the Integrated Architecture® system thanks to the Studio 5000 ™ Add On profiles!
Stratix 5950 vs Stratix Ethernet 5700
Finally, if we compare the two devices we can see their main difference:
- the Stratix 5700 is a managed switch
- the Stratix 5950 is for security
So these two solutions can be used together. In fact, you can use one or more Stratix 5700 to connect all the internal nodes of the machinery and then, at the same time, you can use a Stratix 5950 to exchange data with the main network in order to protect the machine from possible cyber attacks.
Read more about industrial networks on the Rockwell Automation portal
